"The Big Deal" had all of the elements that could have become a very boring commercial: a gray telephone wire against a plain white background ... and 60 seconds to fill. And that is what got Blue Sky director Carlos Saldanha excited about the project. The simplicity of the design allowed him to concentrate on developing "Jack's" personality. He wanted to create a realistic-looking character that would be fun to watch.

A considerable amount of effort went into staging and executing the wire's movements for each scene. Jack's performance was designed to highlight each feature offered by the telephone company. The trick was to animate the cord to create strong poses. For the "call waiting" scene for example. Jack taps his foot impatiently as if waiting for a call. In each scene the phone jack "head" was blocked out and animated first, creating the impetus for the animation of the phone cord. Subtle wiggles and kinks were added for realism. At one point, the wire transforms itself into the number 9, where a wave begins at the head and carries back to the end of the tail. The follow-through makes it look alive.
Some scenes were more complex than others, especially the one in which nimble Jack scrutinizes a Caller ID box. The box was modeled in Softimage, but Blue Sky's software was used to assign materials and properties to the box to make it look real. Things also got tricky when creating the three-headed wire. It took a little programming wizardry to get three wires to spring out of the main wire and look seamless. The subsequent scene, in which Jack stiffens up and imitates a periscope, was more straightforward. That scene was very simple and did not require fancy animation, but the sound of the submarine made it come to life. The sound lets you know exactly what was going on. Blue Sky modeled and animated with Softimage. The final render was done with Blue Sky's proprietary software, called CGI Studio™, which gave the wire its realistic look.